Ready to refresh your appearance? Let fat work in your favor! By using fat as a long-lasting filler, Dr. Chen can help restore volume to thinning features, smooth facial folds, and restore a more youthful profile.

Initial Recovery Time: 3 days

Final Results: 2 weeks

Facial fat injections in Richmond

We tend to think “less is more” when it comes to fat, but if you’re looking for long-lasting, natural facial rejuvenation, fat can be a good thing!

By using your own fat as a natural filler, an experienced plastic surgeon can smooth fine lines and wrinkles and restore youthful volume to facial features, achieving long-lasting improvements in a simple, in-office procedure.

How fat grafting rejuvenates an aging face

As we age, facial tissues lose volume, leading to undesirable changes such as hollowed cheeks, fine lines and wrinkles, and sagging or “hardened” features.

Fat grafting can address facial volume loss by removing a small amount of fat from a place where it won’t be missed (i.e., the belly, hips, or thighs), and injecting it strategically into specific points on the face to plump thinning tissues and restore smoother, more youthful contours.

By using your own fat as a filler, an experienced plastic surgeon can achieve results that look and feel completely natural, and the rejuvenating effects can last for years. Just a few of the age-related problems that Dr. Chen can address with facial fat grafting:

Hollowed or sunken cheeks

Fine lines and wrinkles around the nose, mouth or eyes

Forehead creases

Skin depressions

What to expect with your Richmond fat grafting procedure

Dr. Chen typically performs facial fat injections as an in-office procedure, using local anesthesia. Using a syringe or a liposuction cannula, he will carefully remove fat from the abdomen, hips, thighs or other area, using techniques that leave the area smooth and natural-looking.

He then prepares the fat for transfer and injects it into the areas of face where you wish to smooth wrinkles or restore volume. He may slightly overfill the area during treatment to account for the fact that some of the injected fat will be naturally absorbed by the body. This over-correction may cause the face to appear a little too full at first; but over the weeks following treatment, results will settle in and look very natural.

Recovery and aftercare following a facial fat transfer

Depending on the extent of treatment, you may need to take several days to recover, but many patients resume normal activity immediately. Pain shouldn’t be an issue, but do expect some swelling and bruising in the area you had fat removed, as well as in the injection sites.

Treated areas areas are extra sensitive to sun exposure, so stay out of the sun until redness and bruising subsides, and apply broad-spectrum sunscreen to exposed areas before going outdoors thereafter.

When will my results be final?

Our facial fat grafting patients often notice immediate improvements, but post-procedure bruising and swelling, as well as any intentional over-filling, will somewhat obscure your results at first. As these effects subside, you will notice the area looks smoother and better refreshed.

Since it is impossible to know exactly how much of the injected fat will survive, follow-up injections may be necessary over the months following your initial procedure to ensure your long-term results are satisfactory.

Ready to learn more? We’ll tell you what you need to know at a personal consultation with board certified plastic surgeon Dr. Stephen M. Chen.

Call 804-285-4115 or use the form below to contact us.

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